


Like water for the onsen

by muttthecowcat22



Series: Yuri on Ice Oneshots [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, For the most part, Hot Springs & Onsen, M/M, YOI Anniversary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 08:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12272577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muttthecowcat22/pseuds/muttthecowcat22
Summary: The first time Victor sees Yuuri in the onsen, he’s fully clothed, which is unfortunate, because Victor has no clothes on at all.“Why are you here?” Yuuri says.Then, he turns around andRUNS AWAY.Well, that could have gone better.Or, Five times Victor steams in the onsen, and the one time he steams with Yuuri.





	Like water for the onsen

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a parody of "Like water for chocolate" by Laura Esquivel.
> 
> I wanted to do something for the YOI first anniversary. So, here it is!
> 
> EDIT: Translated the title to English because my brain at 3 in the morning did not warn me that readers might think the entire work was written in Spanish. Also, minor grammar and wording edits.

The first time Victor sees Yuuri in the onsen, he’s fully clothed, which is unfortunate, because Victor has no clothes on at all.

“Why are you here?” Yuuri says. 

Then, he turns around and

RUNS AWAY.

Well, that could have gone better.

For the remainder of the day, Victor tries time and again to catch Yuuri’s attention: with the jinbei off his shoulder, complimenting his favorite food, trying to ask him about himself.  Nothing works, nothing at all. 

That night, Victor tries to piece together how Yuuri could have lost all the interest in him after he had felt such a connection at the banquet.  What had changed?

Oh.

Yuuri had seen Victor naked.

Did that mean that Yuuri thought . . . Victor did not want to finish that sentence. He found himself googling “the average length of a Russian man” anyway.  Victor had always thought of himself as above average – but it never hurt to be sure.  There was a ruler in one of his boxes if he wanted an exact measurement.  He didn’t need it, though.  He didn’t need to do this.  Probably.

 

After spending his entire second day in Hatsetsu talking with Yuuri, working out with Yuuri, and trying and failing to learn more about Yuuri, Victor feels exhausted.  His sole desire is to take a bath and sleep away his attempt to fight off jet lag.  He has only just stepped back into the Katsukis’ warmly lit inn, enticed by the spices floating on the air from one of the back rooms and Yuuri’s voice as he speaks to his mother in Japanese.  The words spill off of Yuuri’s tongue, confident, smooth, and somehow even more alluring than they are in English.  He watches Yuuri’s lips as they flutter around the words, chapped but flushed to a deep rose from the day’s workout.

Yuuri turns towards him, and his mom is waving at Victor and smiling so kindly.

“After we bathe, she’ll have dinner waiting for us,” Yuuri says, and, oh, his voice in English is still very, very alluring.  That is when Victor realizes that he doesn’t take normal, solo baths anymore, he’s about to go bathe in the onsen with Yuuri.  Together.

He stumbles through a few words of gratitude to Yuuri’s mom as best he can with his nonexistent knowledge of Japanese, then grabs Yuuri’s warm, smooth, angelic wrist and pulls him towards the doors leading to the hot springs.

“V-Victor! Slow down,” Yuuri sputters behind him.  Victor just pulls him along faster.

It’s physically painful to let go of his wrist once they actually reach the doors.  Touching Yuuri gives Victor life and warmth.  He thought that literally living with him would give him unlimited access to Yuuri’s perfect skin, but, alas, not so!

In his rush to bathe with Yuuri, Victor immediately begins stripping out of his clothes.

“Victor!” he hears Yuuri call from behind him and pauses.  When he turns around, Yuuri’s eyes are wide but very pointedly not looking at him, instead staring at a point over his head.  “At least grab a towel first,” Yuuri says and holds out a towel in Victor’s direction, continuing to avert his eyes.

Now, Victor had intuited that a man, such as himself, was not supposed to stare blatantly at the other men as they bathed in the onsen.  He had thought, though, that Yuuri would be an exception to this rule.  He’s already seen all that Victor has to offer once, what would twice hurt?  But once again: not so!  If Yuuri cannot look at Victor, then Victor can most definitely not look at Yuuri.  He will have to refrain from openly staring for the duration of their bath.  No problem.  He can do that.  He should be able to catch a few not-so-obvious glimpses anyway.  Maybe.  That would probably be creepy.

Victor busies himself with cleaning off at the shower that Yuuri directs him to.  It is literally painful to keep his head facing the wall as the rustle of Yuuri’s clothes behind him mixes with the pitter-patter of the water.  With each rustle, Victor can picture an item of clothing sliding over Yuuri’s well-toned muscles.  First his shirt, then his pants, his underwear (probably the same navy boxer briefs from the banquet), and last but not least, his glasses.  Those glasses click ever so faintly as Yuuri peels them over his face, running his hand through his hair to brush any wayward strands from his eyes.  Yuuri looks intoxicating with his hair pushed back.  Victor has always imagined naked Yuuri with pushed back hair.  Yuuri’s also gained more than a few pounds since December.  He’s probably softer, with more curves, now.  Victor wonders just how much that softer skin on Yuuri’s hips would indent with the slightest pressure of his fingers.

“Victor, you don’t have to wait on me if you’re finished.”  There was Yuuri’s angelic voice again, jolting Victor back to reality.  Victor finds himself still sitting in front of the shower.  He glances down at his arm, which he has been absent-mindedly scrubbing, to find it red, nearly all the skin rubbed off.

He mourns his fate in the universe.  If Yuuri didn’t like how he looked the day before, he surely won’t like Victor as he is now, with his arm blemished and nearly bleeding.  He might as well move on to the actual hot bath outside.  At least he can spare Yuuri’s eyes from his ruined image.  He stands up, throws the towel around his hips, and walks outside, all the while, very pointedly not looking in Yuuri’s direction.

The outdoor bath is empty also, which suits Victor just as well, so that he can slink into the hot water and stew in silence.  Eventually, the doors to the side of the pool open, admitting Yuuri’s steam-obscured form in the corner of his eye.  He can barely see Yuuri before he slips into the water as well – as far away from Victor as he possibly can while still sitting at an angle that forces Victor to visibly turn his head to see him.

It must be worse than Victor thought.

They soak in silence.  Yuuri moves slightly every few seconds, causing the water to lap and splash against the edges of the pool and around Victor’s waist.  It’s almost as if Yuuri is touching him through the water.  Victor tries and fails to slow down his heart.

The minutes slowly tick by, or they would if Victor had brought his phone with him.  He doesn’t really know how long he is actually supposed to sit in the water, and, without his phone, he has no idea how long he has been there already.  Between the steaming water and his beating heart, he thinks he must have overheated at least five minutes ago.  He’s completely dependent on Yuuri to cue him in on when to stand up, though – completely dependent on a Yuuri that he can’t look at, talk with, or touch.

For a few more minutes, silence carries on, until Victor can feel sweat dripping down his forehead.  He imagines Yuuri being blinded by his shiny forehead and never speaking to him again.

The water laps a little more forcefully around his waist, lulling his eyes closed.

“Victor,” Yuuri says. 

Victor immediately perks up.  He finally has a reason to look at Yuuri, or at least, in his direction.  He’s been waiting for this.

When he does look, however, Yuuri sits in the corner of the pool, completely curled into a ball, his shoulders hunched over and his arms around his knees.

“I might soak a little longer, but you can go back inside now, if you want to,” he continues.  His eyes flit around in many directions, none of which point toward Victor, and he averts them completely as soon as he’s finished speaking.

Victor holds a hand up to his forehead and climbs out of the water, wrapping his towel around his waist as quickly as possible.

At dinner, Yuuri acts completely normal, as if he hadn’t just shattered Victor’s heart.

Yuuri’s mom asks in halting English if they had a nice, quiet bath.  Victor appreciates her effort to speak with him, so he attempts to bury his hurt feelings and put on a smile.  Yuuri seems much more comfortable expressing his affirmative opinion.  He smiles as well, a real smile.  It’s the first time that Victor’s seen that particular expression on Yuuri’s face since arriving at the onsen.  It’s just as beautiful as he remembers it from the banquet.  The sparkles from the dim lighting in the dining room contrast well with the depths of Yuuri’s dark eyes, as his cheeks tinge a faint – very faint – shade of pink.

So, the hot springs bath was supposed to be silent then?  _Maybe he still likes me_ , Victor thinks, but he can’t be sure.  He figures there’s no use in worrying about it at the moment.  It’s not like he can just crawl back to Russia because Yuuri might not like how he looks naked, even if he does really want to.  If he’s really serious about becoming Yuuri’s coach, though, he’ll be spending more than enough time around Yuuri to figure it out anyway.

 

The third time Victor sees Yuuri in the bath passes similarly to the second time.  So do the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh times.  Maybe, Victor’s over exaggerating.  Things do actually, marginally, improve with each day.  For instance, after a week passes, Victor feels like he can look in Yuuri’s general direction even if Yuuri is not speaking directly to him.  Yuuri has even moved a few centimeters out of the corner of the pool, but he still manages to slip into the water each time outside of Victor’s field of vision.  He also always asks Victor to leave before he gets out.  Yet, he acts the same whether there are other people in the bath with them or not.  Victor still can’t figure out if Yuri just doesn’t like the way he looks or if this is just the way things are done.  He’s beginning to think the latter, and that he’s just over analyzing everything because he’s not as accustomed to it as Yuuri.  He’s also beginning to think that the banquet was just a fluke day in his life and that Yuuri was never interested in him at all.

Then, Yura shows up at Ice Palace with a vendetta, and any chance of spending quality time with Yuuri either inside or outside of the onsen significantly decreases.

Yura – or _Yurio –_ opts to take a solo bath on his first night at the onsen, giving Victor one last opportunity for some alone time with Yuuri, or, at least as alone as they can be in a public bath with three other men.  Yuuri continues to hog the far corner of the pool while completely ignoring Victor. 

He has finally dropped back down to his ideal figure skating weight.  While Victor misses chubby, soft Yuuri, in-shape Yuuri is something he wishes he could catch more than glimpses of.  And, that night, it annoys him.

He’s been around long enough now to know that the level of silence that Yuuri maintains in the bath is not quite normal.  The other patrons talk to each other while bathing, albeit quietly most of the time.  But, the point is that they do talk – and Yuuri doesn’t.

And, Victor is getting very tired of not talking.

That night, as he watches Yuuri rise from the water, sling on his towel, and scurry away, he decides that he is going to figure out what is going on with him one way or another.

 

It takes about three days total for Yurio to join them in the public bath.  His exact words are: “I’m sick of cleaning my ass in a wooden bucket.”

It also just so happens that, for the past three days, Victor has completely quit using the towel that Yuuri always hands him.  He walks between the showers and the bath with absolutely nothing on, like he’s seen some of the other men do. If Yuuri can’t stand to look at him, then his eyes might just burn.

Yuuri, for his part, either doesn’t notice at all or he is very talented at pretending otherwise.

The first time that Yurio joins them, Victor is already soaking in the water.  When Yurio unknowingly takes up residence in Yuuri’s sacred corner, Victor doesn’t say a word.  He simply watches as Yuuri finally steps out of the inn and realizes that the only remaining open space is the one directly across from Victor.

He pauses at the edge of the pool and appears to vibrate for a bit before dropping his towel and quite literally jumping into the water in one fell swoop.  The action happens so fast that Victor nearly misses it.

Yuuri proceeds to curl into a ball, something he hasn’t done in over a week, and once again imposes his reign of silence.

“Oi, Katsudon, is this it – we just sit here?”

Yuuri uncurls enough to respond with a “yeah.”

What happens next, Victor is still trying to wrap his head around.

What can only be described as a smirk appears on Yuuri's face, and he says – Yuuri Katsuki actually says – “So, does your ass like the rocks better than the wooden bucket?”

The only response is Yurio’s hand hitting the water and sending a tidal wave over Yuuri’s head, flinging the towel that was resting there into the bushes.  Before anything can really register, another splash of hot, steaming water connects with Yuuri’s face.  Then, a splash in the opposite direction swamps Yurio’s blond hair.

Yurio yells and stands up, trampling towards Yuuri, splashes in his wake, forcing Yuuri to stand up as well to counter him.  And, Victor finds himself feeling incredibly jealous because Yurio gets to look at Yuuri, talk to Yuuri, and touch Yuuri, even if it is only to knock him down.  And, down they both go, falling over and knocking most of the water out of the pool.

When he manages to right himself, Yurio yells, “Wipe that shit look off your face, Victor,” just before a final wave of steaming water pelts Victor’s head, disrupting his bangs and exposing his forehead.

The older man who had drifted to sleep on the other side of the pool promptly stands up and steps out.  Yuuri scrambles to run after him, repeating something in Japanese that must be an apology.

Overall, Victor counts it as an improvement.

For the remainder of Yurio’s stay, Yuuri remains more open during their baths.  No more corners or curling into balls, and he talks with both Victor and Yurio every night.

 

The night after Onsen on Ice, Victor soaks in the bath alone under the stars and dim lighting.  Yurio had already left to return to Russia earlier in the day.  Without him there, Victor worries that his relationship with Yuuri might regress to what it had been before.

He is surprised when Yuuri steps outside and claims the place opposite him, just like he had been doing for the past week.  He had thought Yuuri had gone to bed already.

But – Yuuri doesn’t say anything.  They sit in silence, though it’s a different silence than the one they started out with.  It’s comfortable.  Victor stares off in another direction, and doesn’t care to break it.  He feels something more than the silence and steam, something new.  He chances a brief glance in Yuuri’s direction, then pauses, shocked.

Yuuri is looking directly at him – staring at him.  His face grows a shade darker as Victor stares back.  He's so pretty, unbelievably pretty, beneath his blush.

“You were looking at me,” Victor says.

Yuuri blanches.  “No, no, no, no, no.”  He waves his hands in front of his face.

“No, you were looking at me,” Victor repeats.

“No, no.  It’s not like tha-“

“Yes, yes, it is like that,” Victor cuts in, “This is something that we need to talk about.”  Yuuri has now hidden his face behind his hands.  “You made me think I was . . . small, and ugly.”

Yuuri’s hands slip off his face.  “No please – wait . . . huh?” he says.

“I even got out a ruler – a ruler, Yuuri!”

“I-I don’t – “

Then, Victor buries his entire head in his arms.  He might be being a bit dramatic, just a tad.  It really is embarrassing.  It’s also kind of difficult to breathe for all the steam collecting under him, but it’s worth it.  He feels entitled to some kind of apology.

Instead, several splashes issue from progressively closer locations to his body.  He braces for impact, but feels a warm, soft weight touch his cheeks on both sides and lift his head out of his arms.

Yuuri sits in the water close enough to him to cup his cheeks in his hands.  His eyes shine, just a bit, under the stars.  Victor has to remind himself to breathe.

“I-I was” He pauses to visibly swallow, the lines of his throat long and angled.  His face and chest shade to an even darker color.  “I was looking at you – I admit – because I think – I think you look good – not ugly.   You look really good.”  Yuuri’s face grows so dark that Victor worries he might spontaneously combust.

Then, for the second time that day, Yuuri hugs Victor.  It takes about 1.5 seconds for Victor to return the hug, 2 seconds for him to realize that he is, in fact, hugging Yuuri Katsuki in an onsen without a single item of clothing between them, and 3 seconds for him to register how soft Yuuri’s skin actually is.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri muffles into his shoulder, “I was just shy, I guess.”

“I thought you would be too used to this – the onsen – to be shy.”

“I’m just not used to you.”

 

They arrive home from China late at night.  Darkness reigns, all the lights extinguished as they step through the front door of the onsen.  Yuuri drops his suitcase and skating bag on the floor and mumbles something that Victor thinks is supposed to mean “I’ll get them in the morning.”

Victor begins moving toward his bedroom when Yuuri stops him.

“Do you want a bath?” he asks.

Victor would love a bath after a long day of traveling.  He nods his head and allows Yuuri to grab his wrist and lead him down the hallway toward the showers.

Yuuri turns on a few of the lights, dim and warm.  They wash off in a now long comfortable silence, then step outside and sink into the hot water.

Yuuri sits beside Victor, leaning into his side, and Victor wraps an arm around his shoulder.  They soak for a while in the moonlight. Yuuri slowly lets the full weight of his head rest on Victor's shoulder.  Victor thinks that he might have fallen asleep.  He really does look like an angel in the warm and cool lighting, surrounded by the reflections on the water.  Victor smooths the dark strands of his hair out of his eyes, which flutter as he does so then open wide in the dim lights.

“Thank you – Victor,” Yuuri says, slow and loud against the silence of the night.  One of his hands slides up the back of Victor’s head, into his hair and pulls him down into a kiss.  His lips are soft from the steam, and the kiss is longer and a little warmer than the one on the ice in China.  Yuuri holds him tighter and closer than he ever has before, and Victor thinks that he never wants to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> I did not have time to edit this as much as I wanted, so I apologize for any grammar mistakes or inconsistencies. I will probably come back and go through it later.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
